Part 11 (1/2)

The beautiful silver furniture at Knole belongs to this time, having been made for one of the Earls of Dorset, in the reign of James II. The ill.u.s.tration is from a photograph taken by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks.

Electrotypes of the originals are in the South Kensington Museum. From two other suites at Knole, consisting of a looking gla.s.s, a table, and a pair of _torcheres_, in the one case of plain walnut wood, and in the other of ebony with silver mountings, it would appear that a toilet suite of furniture of the time of James II. generally consisted of articles of a similar character, more or less costly, according to circ.u.mstances. The silver table bears the English Hall mark of the reign.

As we approach the end of the seventeenth century and examine specimens of English furniture about 1680 to 1700, we find a marked Flemish influence.

The Stadtholder, King William III., with his Dutch friends, imported many of their household goods[12], and our English craftsmen seem to have copied these very closely. The chairs and settees in the South Kensington Museum, and at Hampton Court Palace, have the shaped back with a wide inlaid or carved upright bar, the cabriole leg and the carved sh.e.l.l ornament on the knee of the leg, and on the top of the back, which are still to be seen in many of the old Dutch houses.

There are a few examples of furniture of this date, which it is almost impossible to distinguish from Flemish, but in some others there is a characteristic decoration in marqueterie, which may be described as a seaweed scroll in holly or box wood, inlaid on a pale walnut ground, a good example of which is to be seen in the upright ”grandfather's clock”

in the South Kensington Museum, the effect being a pleasing harmony of colour.

In the same collection there is also a walnut wood centre table, dating from about 1700, which has twisted legs and a stretcher, the top being inlaid with intersecting circles relieved by the inlay of some stars in ivory.

As we have observed with regard to French furniture of this time, mirrors came more generally into use, and the frames were both carved and inlaid.

There are several of these at Hampton Court Palace, all with bevelled edged plate gla.s.s; some have frames entirely of gla.s.s, the short lengths which make the frame, having in some cases the joints covered by rosettes of blue gla.s.s, and in others a narrow moulding of gilt work on each side of the frame. In one room (the Queen's Gallery) the frames are painted in colors and relieved by a little gilding.

The taste for importing old Dutch furniture, also lacquer cabinets from j.a.pan, not only gave relief to the appearance of a well furnished apartment of this time, but also brought new ideas to our designers and workmen. Our collectors, too, were at this time appreciating the Oriental china, both blue and white, and colored, which had a good market in Holland, so that with the excellent silversmith's work then obtainable, it was possible in the time of William and Mary to arrange a room with more artistic effect than at an earlier period, when the tapestry and panelling of the walls, a table, the livery cupboard previously described, and some three or four chairs, had formed almost the whole furniture of reception rooms.

The first mention of corner cupboards appears to have been made in an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a Dutch joiner in ”The Postman” of March 8th, 1711; these cupboards, with their carved pediments being part of the modern fittings of a room in the time of Queen Anne.

The oak presses common to this and earlier times are formed of an upper and lower part, the former sometimes being three sides of an octagon with the top supported by columns, while the lower half is straight, and the whole is carved with incised ornament. These useful articles of furniture, in the absence of wardrobes, are described in inventories of the time (1680-1720) as ”press cupboards,” ”great cupboards,” ”wainscot,” and ”joyned cupboards.”

The first mention of a ”Buerow,” as our modern word ”Bureau” was then spelt, is said by Dr. Lyon, in his American book, ”The Colonial Furniture of New England,” to have occurred in an advertis.e.m.e.nt in ”The Daily Post”

of January 4th, 1727. The same author quotes Bailey's Dictionarium Britannic.u.m, published in London, 1736, as defining the word ”bureau” as ”a cabinet or chest of drawers, or 'scrutoir' for depositing papers or accounts.”

In the latter half of the eighteenth century those convenient pieces of furniture came into more general use, and ill.u.s.trations of them as designed and made by Chippendale and his contemporaries will be found in the chapter dealing with that period.

Dr. Lyon also quotes from an American newspaper, ”The Boston News Letter”

of April 16th, 1716, an advertis.e.m.e.nt which was evidently published when the tall clocks, which we now call ”grandfathers' clocks,” were a novelty, and as such were being introduced to the American public. We have already referred to one of these which is in the South Kensington Museum, date 1700, and no doubt the manufacture of similar ones became more general during the first years of the eighteenth century. The advertis.e.m.e.nt alluded to runs, ”Lately come from London, a parcel of very fine clocks--they go a week and repeat the hour when pulled” (a string caused the same action as the pressing of the handle of a repeating watch) ”in j.a.pan cases or wall-nut.”

The style of decoration in furniture and woodwork which we recognise as ”Queen Anne,” apart from the marqueterie just described, appears, so far as the writer's investigations have gone, to be due to the designs of some eminent architects of the time. Sir James Vanbrugh was building Blenheim Palace for the Queen's victorious general, and also Castle Howard.

Nicholas Hawksmoor had erected St. George's. Bloomsbury, and James Gibbs, a Scotch architect and antiquary, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and the Royal Library at Oxford; a ponderous style characterises the woodwork interior of these buildings. We give an ill.u.s.tration of three designs for chimney-pieces and overmantels by James Gibbs, the centre one of which ill.u.s.trates the curved or ”swan-necked” pediment, which became a favourite ornament about this time, until supplanted by the heavier triangular pediment which came in with ”the Georges.”

The contents of Hampton Court Palace afford evidence of the transition which the design of woodwork and furniture has undergone from the time of William III. until that of George II. There is the Dutch chair with cabriole leg, the plain walnut card table also of Dutch design, which probably came over with the Stadtholder; then, there are the heavy draperies, and chairs almost completely covered by Spitalfields silk velvet, to be seen in the bedroom furniture of Queen Anne. Later, as the heavy Georgian style predominated, there is the stiff ungainly gilt furniture, console tables with legs ornamented with the Greek key pattern badly applied, and finally, as the French school of design influenced our carvers, an improvement may be noticed in the tables and _torcheres_, which but for being a trifle clumsy, might pa.s.s for the work of French craftsmen of the same time. The State chairs, the bedstead, and some stools, which are said to have belonged to Queen Caroline, are further examples of the adoption of French fas.h.i.+on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Three Chimneypieces. Designed by James Gibes, Architect, in 1739.]

Nearly all writers on the subject of furniture and woodwork are agreed in considering that the earlier part of the period discussed in this chapter, that is, the seventeenth century, is the best in the traditions of English work. As we have seen in noticing some of the earlier Jacobean examples already ill.u.s.trated and described, it was a period marked by increased refinement of design through the abandonment of the more grotesque and often coa.r.s.e work of Elizabethan carving, and by soundness of construction and thorough workmans.h.i.+p.

Oak furniture made in England during the seventeenth century, is still a credit to the painstaking craftsmen of those days, and even upholstered furniture, like the couches and chairs at Knole, after more than 250 years' service, are fit for use.

In the ninth and last chapter, which will deal with furniture of the present day, the methods of production which are now in practice will be noticed, and some comparison will be made which must be to the credit of the Jacobean period.

In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to preserve, as far as possible, a certain continuity in the history of the subject matter of this work from the earliest times until after the Renaissance had been generally adopted in Europe. In this endeavour a greater amount of attention has been bestowed upon the furniture of a comparatively short period of English history than upon that of other countries, but it is hoped that this fault will be forgiven by English readers.

It has now become necessary to interrupt this plan, and before returning to the consideration of European design and work, to devote a short chapter to those branches of the Industrial Arts connected with furniture which flourished in China and j.a.pan, in India, Persia, and Arabia, at a time anterior and subsequent to the Renaissance period in Europe.